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Monthly Archives: September 2015

Anthony: With the gray skies looming and our spirits low with the onset of fall, Adam Richter and I needed some comfort food (read: tacos).
We weren’t playing around an we had our sights set on the popular and very Mexican Taqueria Jimenez at 810 Oley St. in Reading.

Adam: We barely got this in under the wire, but here is the September installment of Latino Lunch. The last day of the month was a perfect time to get our taco fix. We went to Taqueria Jimenez, which sits in a shopping center next to an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. Thankfully we didn’t get confused. Taqueria Jiminez has a large menu, but as Anthony points out, we were only interested in one section.

Anthony: The place was bustling with patrons. Though many were Latino, I also spotted some of our gringo brethren and some black folks in there. The waitress was bilingual and the sounds of Spanglish and telenovelas filled the air.

Adam: I especially liked the plethora of bullfighting memorabilia on the walls. One poster, which appeared to be antique, really caught my eye. Whatever you think of the sport – and for the record, whenever I read “Ferdinand” to my kid I always root for the bull – it makes for some fantastic art.

Anthony: We took a gander at the menu and jumped right into the tacos. I ordered three, one chicken, one steak and one that was pork and pineapple. I ordered mine with “everything,” meaning the customary onion and cilantro. The tacos also came with lime wedges, a radish and a bright red, spicy, grilled jalapeño.

Adam: In an attempt to be somewhat healthy, I ordered three tacos as well – a healthier option than ordering six, which I could have easily done. I got two chicken tacos and one cactus. Finally, after more than a year, I found a vegetarian option for Latino food. The cactus did not disappoint, either. It was light, crispy and had a mild flavor. It reminded me of a bell pepper. The chicken was a little dry, but some fresh-squeezed lime juice, tomatillo sauce and picante sauce helped nicely.

Anthony: The lime was a big help to the just-slightly dry chicken. The steak taco was fantastic. I rarely eat red meat and these tacos made me angry that I deprive myself of such deliciousness. The cuts of meat were the perfect size. Though the steak was great, I think the pork and pinapple taco stole the show. The pineapple flavor was very understated and really complemented the smokey, savory pork. I would go back for even just an order of only the pork and pineapple tacos for sure. I got a taste of the cactus taco and was pleasantly surprised with the flavor and consistency of the cactus; kind of a hardier green pepper taste and feel.

Adam: I gotta say, the corn tortillas on which the tacos were served were equally fantastic. Anthony, you pointed out that typically soft tacos need double tortillas because they flake and fall apart easily. That wasn’t the case with these. They were so soft and warm I had to wait a few minutes before they were cool enough to grab. Definitely worth the wait, though.
The non-taco dish we tried was a sope, a kind of cornmeal pancake on which was served shredded lettuce, tomatoes, chicken, refried beans and an avocado. I like just about everything in the ingredients list, but the cornmeal tasted a little doughy. I probably would have been more favorable to it if I hadn’t had three of the best tacos of my life just minutes before.

Anthony: Yes the sope was in the terrible position of following an act that brought the house down. The beans, chicken and vegetables of the sope just could not live up to the flavors of those tacos. I can imagine the dish being a favorite for others. In fact, I actually saw a handful of other diners with sopes. But I am not a fan of cornmeal base. I mean, I’m pretty picky about my tamales due to my lack of enthusiasm for cornmeal. But that’s just preference I suppose.

Adam: I actually don’t mind cornmeal as much as you do. I like the occasional tamale. But you’re right. The sope reminded me of the time I saw The Beastie Boys play Lollapalooza, only to have Smashing Pumpkins be the closing act. In this metaphor, the tacos were the Beastie Boys.

It does not surprise me at all that Taquiera Jimenez draws a sizable lunch crowd.

Social media in general, and Facebook in particular, have been a boon to the liars and the gullible among us. Just this week we saw the resurfacing of a rumor, debunked years ago, that you had to post a legal notice in your Facebook status to protect the information on there.

Content on the Internet lasts forever, but our memories not so much; soon friends we thought of as otherwise reasonable people were posting this same notice, with the “Better safe than sorry” disclaimer.

Turns out the safe option would have been to ignore these specious rumors.

Why do false rumors like this persist on social media? Part of it is that Facebook is a fertile breeding ground for false information. In a recent column I wrote about the communities there that still believe the earth is flat. There are pages dedicated to the lie that President Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Outside these relatively closed communities, misinformation still runs rampant. Did you see the photo meme of Pope Francis with a “quote” saying that you don’t need religion or church? It’s a fake.

Words are not enough to grab someone’s attention on social media. We know that in order to pause the infinite scroll in someone’s Facebook feed, you need an image — even if that image is nothing more than a block of text next to a mug shot.

By now, everyone knows that trick, so to grab eyeballs they seek the most attention-getting image or words possible. Who cares if it’s fiction?

We all should. The constant spreading of misinformation online makes it harder to tell what stories are true. This leads to the bubble that comedian Bill Maher talks about on his HBO show, “Real Time.” Soon we can’t even have debates on an issue because no one can agree on what reality is.

Craig Silverman, creator of the Regret The Error blog, has a post on Medium about four ways that journalists can verify information online. This is not just a task for journalists. If everyday users of social media don’t take steps to stop the flood of falsehoods, we are all complicit in the dismantling of truth online.

With that, I’ll leave you with this photo meme that I posted on my Twitter and Facebook pages. You can be reasonably sure I said it, but double check anyway.

This week’s stories of awkward behavior on social media all revolve around crime: Those who commit it, those who fight it and those who tweet about it even when they shouldn’t. Read on:

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey: The governor got a quick lesson how not to tweet, when he sent out the message: “We got him!” after police arrested a suspect in a series of freeway shootings around Phoenix.

Here’s the problem, besides prematurely convicting a man who hasn’t had his trial yet: He was A suspect. Not THE suspect. Leslie Allen Merritt Jr. was only charge in four of 11 shootings, so other shooters could still be at large. Merritt, for his part, maintains his innocence, the governor’s tweet notwithstanding.

Jennifer Lynn Dougherty: The Janesville, Wis., woman was charged with having sex with a 14-year-old boy she met online. Police say she and the boy initially had contact through online gaming, and she flew to Dallas earlier this month to meet him. They then went to Wisconsin before returning to Texas, where Dougherty was arrested.

She’s innocent until proven guilty, of course, but here’s hoping Dougherty spends her online time away from gaming sites and instead finds better ways to waste time — like Facebook, for instance.

Jason Hicks: The Clay County, Minn., sheriff’s deputy was suspended when he said on Facebook that someone should have stomped the guts out of a man taking pictures at a pool over the summer. The man in question was not charged or arrested, but Hicks’ supervisors said his post calling for vigilante — um, justice? — violated the department’s social media policy.

Now he knows.

Threats against a high school: Someone has made threats twice in 10 days on social media against El Dorado High School in El Dorado, Kan. One threat led to a two-hour lockdown, while a second forced the postponement of the school’s football game.

So far police have no leads, and the district says it’s not assuming the threats came from students.

We live an age where we have heightened anxiety to the point where we assume a homemade clock is a bomb. Frankly, we could do with fewer needless causes for alarm.

This week I look at viral posts, hollow threats and, of course, poop. Have a socially awkward tale to share? Email me.

Universal Music: On Monday the company lost an effort to toss a lawsuit over “fair use” of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Universal sent a notice to YouTube demanding a video be taken down that featured a baby dancing to the classic Prince hit. The baby’s mother sued, arguing that the video constituted fair use of the song. A judge ruled that the lawsuit can go forward, opening the door to a possible broader definition of fair use.Copyright is important, and content should be protected, but where is the harm in letting a baby dance to a clip of a song? Besides whatever that baby, now 10, will hear in school from his peers, I mean?

Starbucks: The coffee chain had to apologize after a Philadelphia police officer’s rant against being denied restroom access went viral on Facebook this week. The sergeant lashed out at the “young blonde liberal” for insisting that the coffee shop’s restrooms are for customers only. Important lesson for companies: When you provide lousy customer service, be prepared for a social media backlash. The officer’s rant was shared more than 17,000 times.

North Carolina State Rep. Michael Speciale: The GOP politician shared an obscenity-laced comment about President Barack Obama on his Facebook page. He didn’t write it, but one could infer that Speciale agrees with the quote calling Obama an “Islamic son of a bitch.”Reasonable people can disagree about ideas, and Speciale is entitled to his opinion — disrespectful though it may be to the president — but given the fact that the “Obama is Muslim” myth has been debunked long ago, he should at least stop spreading outright falsehoods.

Two Wyoming students: The unidentified students prompted a lockdown at Rock Springs Junior High School when they posted threats about the school on Instagram. The school was placed on lockdown but no weapons were found in the students’ lockers.What I said above about not spreading outright falsehoods extends to threats. If this were a joke, it wasn’t a good one.

Nathan Novak: The Instagram user started a hashtag (inappropriate to post here) and posted photos, tagged with said hashtag, where he threw bags of dog waste at his dog. It’s a disgusting and mean habit, and hardly one that you should post on social media. It might be the most socially awkward of all of this week’s stories.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve deleted my own tweets before, embarrassed not for the content but for the occasional typos that I’ve included. There’s a difference, however, between me and a politician:

A politician is a public servant. Social media counts as a form of the public record. In theory, public officials should no sooner be able to delete their official tweets than they should be able to delete their votes from official meeting minutes.

The U.S. Politwoops site went dark in June of this year. The news is that Twitter pulled the plug on Politwoop in its 30 remaining countries.

Christopher Gates, president of the Sunlight Foundation, said the move is a consequence of having public discussions in a private arena:

“Unfortunately, Twitter’s decision to pull the plug on Politwoops is a reminder of how the Internet isn’t truly a public square. Our shared conversations are increasingly taking place in privately owned and managed walled gardens, which means that the politics that occur in such conversations are subject to private rules. (In this case, Twitter’s terms of service for usage of its API.)”

The Open State Foundation reported on its blog that Twitter made the move because it wants to level the playing field for whoever wants to delete their tweets. If it’s good enough for a private citizen to delete without fear of consequence, so should it be for public officials.

“Twitter said that its decision to suspend access to Politwoops followed a ‘thoughtful internal deliberation and close consideration of a number of factors’ and that it doesn’t distinguish between users,” the Foundation reported.

This is a nice sentiment, but the public utterances of elected officials should be distinguished from those of private citizens.

If there is any bright spot to this, it’s that some of the deleted tweets aren’t completely gone. If you check the Wayback Machine, you can still find some of the tweets that politicians have unsuccessfully tried to erase from public memory.

I wouldn’t have enough to retire on, but I’d have a much heftier savings account.

Facebook users have been calling for a dislike button for some time, wanting some other way to follow a post than simply giving it the thumbs-up icon that comes with “liking.” In a town hall meeting this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company will roll out more options than just the Like icon. He admitted to some early hesitation about creating its opposite, a thumbs-down “dislike” button:

“We don’t want to turn Facebook into a forum where people are voting up and down on people’s posts.”

That makes sense. Facebook is not — or it shouldn’t be, at least — a site where users compete for the most popular posts. Zuckerberg pointed out, however, that it’s “surprisingly complicated” to come up with icons that can express simply the range of emotions that a Facebook post might elicit.

Whatever new icon(s) Facebook develops, they will certainly be abused by trolls and other awful people. I can already imagine someone disliking a post by a parent proclaiming “Timmy hit a home run in little league today!”

You might want a dislike button, but prepare for it to be used in ways you might not intend. As Zuckerberg points out, emotions are complicated.

Maybe the problem lies with the “like” button. It works for most Facebook post/comment situations, but its name can seem incongruous with posts where someone is sharing bad news.

Perhaps instead of a “dislike” button, the “like” button should be made a little more neutral. It can be renamed to honestly reflect its purpose. Instead of calling it a “like” button, we can call it the “I acknowledge that you wrote something” button.

Sure, it sounds cold and emotionless. But if we want to share genuine emotions with others, why are we looking for a button to do it?

Facebook was in the news quite a bit this week — not because of anything the company did, but because of the criminal activities that people decided to post on the social network. Read on:

Christian Eaton: The St. Louis teen is only 17, so hopefully he’s still young enough to learn two important lessons. First: Don’t steal guns. Second: Don’t post photos of yourself with a stolen gun on social media. St. Louis police say Eaton stole a 9mm pistol from a woman’s unlocked car in July. Eaton tried to blame a female friend for the theft, according to police, but officers found incriminating text messages and, perhaps most incriminating, the above-referenced Facebook post.

Anthony Sean Duke: Speaking of Facebook, a Michigan man faces a murder trial partly because of a post on the site that led investigators to consider him the suspect in a landscaper’s death. Authorities say Ronald Hauser, a landscaper who was known to carry large amounts of cash, was killed December 2011. Several months later, in 2012, Duke wrote on Facebook asking “What to do?? … 30K I have to spend.” Duke has been charged with first-degree murder. Jury selection in his trial began this week.

Apple: Tech companies have an abysmal track record when it comes to diversity, and Apple is no exception. So it was painful to see their big keynote on Wednesday with a PhotoShop demonstration — run by a man — that shows how you can “force” a woman to smile in a photo. Just one question, Apple: Really?

In this week’s examples of people stumbling on social media, two important lessons can be learned: Watch what you say, and watch how you react to what others say. Read on:

Damon Batson and Carlos Gonzalez: The two men face drug and weapons charges after they live-streamed their armed pursuit of a man they thought was with one of their girlfriends. Sacramento, Calif., police said the pair broadcast their search on Periscope, the live-streaming app owned by Twitter, and could be seen firing a gun, showing off some pot plants and knocking on an apartment door. No one was hurt, but some of the viewers of the live stream encouraged the men to keep searching for the intended victim.

Thankfully, police these days are savvy in social media. More on that later.

Jon Scheutz: The University of Nebraska football stadium announcer lost his job after one day. The reason? Last year, before he was hired, Scheutz criticized the firing of head football coach Bo Pelini.Scheutz said he agreed with the firing — his firing, that is — and hoped it would serve as a lesson to others. “Be very careful what you say on social media,” he said. Good advice for anyone: Remember that what you say could risk offending a current or future employer.

Jessica McLoughan: The wife of the general manager of Washington’s NFL team made a crude suggestion about an ESPN reporter on Twitter. Classy, right? The team then tried to claim that McLoughan’s tweet came from a fake account. The only problem with that is, it wasn’t true. She really sent it. The team owned by Dan Snyder is a textbook example of how not to run a sports franchise. Now they’re an example of what not to do on social media.

Peoria, Ill.: The city has settled a lawsuit with a man who created a parody Twitter account of the mayor. He sued Peoria because after he created the account, police raided his home. Parodies are protected speech. I would say free speech, except in this case violating Jon Daniel’s rights cost the city $125,000. Hopefully that’s a lesson learned in how NOT to take a joke.

So who won?

The prize goes to the Fresno, Calif., police.

Authorities discovered threats from a 15-year-old boy against fellow San Joaguin Memorial High School students that the teen posted on social media. Police acted quickly after seeing the teen’s Intagram posts hinting at an attack on the school. Officers recovered a revolver, ammunition, a ballistic vest and an airsoft AK-47 replica at his home. He has since been sent to a mental health facility and is facing charges of making terroristic threats. Good work by the Fresno police to make effective use of social media and stop this poor kid before he made a terrible decision.